Unibo Team Leader: Prof. Giovanni Martinelli, Dip. di Medicina Specialistica, Diagnostica e Sperimentale
Hematological diseases are highly heterogeneous malignancies in the matter of the molecular mechanisms related to their development and progression. A considerable heterogeneity can be further observed within the same hematological disease at the inter-individual level, being reflected by different clinical outcomes and responses to treatment in different patients. Nowadays, the advent of high-throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies that are revolutionizing genomics and transcriptomics by providing a single base resolution tool for a unified deep analysis of diseases complexity allows a fast and cost-efficient fine-scale assessment of the genetic variability hidden within cohorts of patients affected by the same leukemia. That being so, by potentially highlighting inter-individual differences that may play a role in the differential success of diverse therapeutic interventions, they promise to be crucial for selecting the most appropriate medical treatments. This project aims at developing a European Hematological/NGS platform of scientists for improving outcomes for therapeutic interventions on acute and chronic leukemias and at developing strategies to personalize treatments and tailor therapies to different stratified groups of leukemia patients, with the goal of optimizing their efficacy and safety through a deeper and deeper understanding of the influence of genetic alterations on leukemias pathogenesis and treatment response (i.e. personalized therapy). Moreover, the final aim will be the identification of novel prognostic biomarkers for acute and chronic leukemias, as well as of molecular biomarkers and/or genome-wide profiles for the assessment of minimal residual disease. The originality of this project is to perform systematic deep whole exome/transcriptome studies on well-clinically-characterized leukemia patients, by exploiting NGS technologies able to quickly produce data with a good cost-effectiveness and an unprecedented resolution.
Coordinator
ALMA MATER STUDIORUM-UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
- Dip. di Medicina Specialistica, Diagnostica e Sperimentale
- Resp. Scientifico: Prof. Giovanni Martinelli
Other participants
Università Degli Studi Di Torino (Italy)
Personal Genomics Srl (Italy)
Sinaptica It Srl (Italy)
Mll Munchner Leukamielabor Gmbh (Germany)
Universitaet Ulm (Germany)
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
Fasteris Sa (Switzerland)
Masarykova Univerzita (Czech Republic)
Fundacion De Investigacion Del Cancer De La Universidad De Salamanca (Spain)
Start date 01/11/2012
End date 31/10/2015
Duration 36 months
Project Reference 306242
Project cost 7.623.352 EURO
Project Funding 5.870.815 EURO
Subprogramme Area HEALTH.2012.1.2-1: Development of technologies with a view to patient group stratification for personalised medicine applications
Contract type Collaborative project- Small or medium-scale focused research project